LAHORE: The Pakistan government has granted approval to five new development projects proposed by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) under the Public Sector Development Programme 2017-18. Official sources said that the projects will cost about Rs3.2 billion.

The projects include National Business Development Programme for SMEs, Product Development Centre for Composite-based Sports Goods, Fruits, Vegetables and Condiments Processing Centre, Fruit Dehydration Unit and Business Skill Development Centres for Women at various locations, according to a statement issued by Smeda.

Allocation of Rs250 million, Rs287.7 million, Rs321.5 million, Rs20 million and Rs28 million respectively have been made under the PSDP for these projects. Smeda CEO Sher Khan, while speaking in a meeting at the authority’s head office, recalled that Smeda entered into the ambit of PSDP in 2006 and so far it had handled Rs5.8 billion worth of investments in about 27 projects across the country. Of these, 19 projects have been completed.

He told the meeting that Smeda projects were being run as common facility centres under the public-private partnership model.

He emphasised that the projects had provided various SME clusters with state-of-the-art technology, training and capacity-building services in order to meet international export standards.

He boasted that SMEs running fruit processing, foundry, auto vendor, light engineering, red chilli processing, textile spinning and honey production units were competing well in the export market because of support provided by the common facility centres.

The Smeda CEO expressed confidence that the new projects approved by the government would also enhance quality and capacity of the SMEs in the clusters concerned.

Smeda’s outreach division is busy interacting with the SME-based trade bodies to keep abreast of emerging needs in various SME clusters in order to plan supportive projects for them. Khan praised the Ministry of Industries and Production for seeking approval as well as fund allocation for the five new projects.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is working on a new ‘institutionalised power policy’ that will be ready by February 2018, the country’s energy minister has said. The policy will be presented before the inter-provincial Council of Common Interests (CCI) for approval under which a ‘national electricity plan’ will be devised to bring new players in power generation and distribution business and create a healthy competition to benefit the consumers in form of low affordable power charges and excellent service delivery.

Interews